THE WOLFPACK
Magnolia Pictures
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: C
Director: Crystal Moselle
Screenwriter: Crystal Moselle
Cast: Govinda Angulo, Naryana Angulo, Mukunda Angulo, Krisna Angulo, Jagadesh, Angulo, Visnu Angulo, Susanne Angulo, Oscar Angulo, Chloe Pecorino
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 6/4/15
Opens: June 12, 2015
Now and then you’ll hear a newscaster say that yet more people have been arrested for keeping their children locked in their house. Sometimes the penalties will be severe and deservedly so, considering that these demented adults have deprived their kids of normal activities during the best years of the young ‘uns’ lives. Yet Crystal Moselle has made a documentary about such a couple without the shadow of a hint that the two adults who gave the filmmakers permission to photograph freely will be prosecuted for their action.
“The Wolfpack” deserves viewing principally because it’s one of a kind, but otherwise, the teens and young adults on display flaunting their activities are irritating and, despite their skill in memorizing actual film strips and acting them out, there’s something missing in their lives, their stories have been edited incoherently, and a lot of questions that audience members are bound to ask remain unanswered. This is a film in sore need of a better editor, a more comprehensive script, and more interesting characters. And the characters deserve to have their unique personalities displayed whereas here they’re all seemingly one of a kind, like the film itself.
Most of the time the youngsters are on display, so we get to know something about them, but not much. As for their parents, there’s almost a blank. The father of the Angulo clan was born in Peru, a failed musician who drones on here and there about how he dislikes materialism. He hates to hear people talk about how they plan to buy a new coat. Despite having seven kids and a wife to support, he’s a bum, but worse he’s a control freak who is responsible primarily for keeping the brood locked in their New York Lower East Side project apartment. Nine people are in one apartment, all young people sleep in a single room. One hates to imagine the bathroom lines since the residence is supported by the dole.
The mother appears to support her husband’s decision on the upbringing of their children. A former hippie who met her husband in Peru, she now has a certificate that has enabled her to homeschool the seven. She opines that the kids in public schools “do bad things to one another.” One wonders, as well, why this product of the American Midwest moved to New York.
The young people, who look more like South American indigenous than products of a Peruvian father and American mother, have been given one freedom. They can watch any movies they wish, and one claims to have seen 5,000. They act out their favorites like “Pulp Fiction,” “The Dark Knight” (how they can even afford Batman outfits and also suits, shirts and ties on welfare is beyond me). Maybe nine times a year they are allowed out and go to their first movie in a theater wearing the shades and dark suits of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith’s characters. They’ve been known to write down entire scripts which they use to act out the gunplay and dialogue of their favorites.
How in heaven’s name did the filmmaker run into them, and more important, how did they get permission from the adults, who must know that they could be subject to arrest and imprisonment? And didn’t the youngsters ever get toothaches? Were they allowed any outside medical or dental help? We don’t know because Crystal Moselle does not bother to tell us. Ultimately it’s difficult to care given the scattershot way the family are filmed without individual personality differences and without any semblance or an organized plot.
Rated R. 89 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C
Acting – B
Technical – B-
Overall – C
